The conventional wisdom is that Obama is being given a great gift this week by Ryan, whose budget proposes to privatize Medicare and slash Medicaid. But the conventional wisdom might be wrong: Ryan is beginning the debate far to the right. He won’t get everything he wants, but if he gets 50 percent of what he wants, or even 35 percent, it’ll be the most dramatic victory that conservatives have scored against the social safety net in a generation — larger, at least in dollar terms, than anything done to welfare in 1996.

And it ignores that Ryan was also given a great gift: the opportunity to set the budget conversation virtually on his own.

Ryan's Randian nightmare for America is utterly moronic, and will never pass the Senate. Even if it did, Americans aren't going to be terribly happy with a bare-bones Medicare. Even newly-minted right-wing stalwart Tim Pawlenty won't endorse it.